A Jamaican/Canadian businessman and licensed firearm holder who was last December taken into custody and charged with murder following the shooting death of a man at a night club in Linstead, St Catherine, following an argument over a woman, was on Tuesday freed of murder.

The man, Averton Roy, 56, was freed in the Home Circuit Court when no evidence was offered against him as it was proven, via a video footage, that he had shot and killed the now deceased in self-defence.

According to a police report, 39-year-old Niguel Beason of Rose Berry in Manchester, England, and Wallen Housing Scheme in Linstead was shot and killed during an argument with Roy.

Roy’s attorney, Hugh Wildman, who was instrumental in getting the Crown to offer no evidence against his client after he wrote a letter to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) outing the situation which had occurred, said his client was attacked and beaten by Beason and another man after he went to the assistance of Beason’s ex-lover who was being beaten by him.

“My client and two females had gone to the club along with a young man and while they were there they did not like what was happening [as] apparently one of females had a relationship with the (now) deceased sometime ago. The (now) deceased was visiting from England and saw the female and was not pleased to see her in the company of another man so there was some argument but my client decided to leave,” Wildman explained. Beason, Wildman added, followed Roy and the women and started to fight his ex-girlfriend.

“…So my client said he went over to the deceased and said to him ‘you shouldn’t be fighting with a woman, you come een like a chicken’, and he turned on him and started to reign some serious blows on him in his head and face; he had a blackout at some stage and he said when he regained consciousness he realised that the beating was continuing and that the (now) deceased was joined by another man who held onto my client so that the (now) deceased could give him more blows,” Wildman added.

He said his client during the incident reach for his firearm and fired one shot which hit Beason and then went and reported the matter, but was arrested and charged last Thursday following a ruling from the DPP.

However, Wildman said he intervened and wrote a strong letter to the DPP stating that there was no basis for Roy to be charged, as he was acting in self-defence and luckily the incident was captured on CCTV outside the club which showed that Roy was in deed under attack when he fired his gun.

As a result he said the DPP agreed that there was no basis for his client to be charged and a voluntarily bill of indictment was prepared for the matter to be brought before the court and dealt with in an expeditious manner.